


The Other Side Of Paradise

by Ink_Quills



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Explicit Language, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Rockstar AU, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, glass animals - Freeform, rockstar!dream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:14:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Quills/pseuds/Ink_Quills
Summary: “Clay.” He whispers, and his tone conveys everything words cannot. It speaks of heartbreak and solitude and wistfulness. It speaks of a man who fell in love with the sun, and learned that ashes were all that could exist where fire was concerned. All George sees is a pillar of fire, readying a sacrifice to the gods, a phoenix borne anew, and he wants to throw himself into the flames. He is enamored, he is anguished, and already he knows that this will end in disaster. But he steps off the precipice without a second thought.~*~Dream is a superstar. George is a nobody. Once, they were each other's.Four years ago, Dream was thrust into stardom. And George was left behind to wallow in conflicted feelings and a growing resentment.Now, he's returned.--This is inspired by the song "The Other Side Of Paradise" by Glass Animals.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 148





	The Other Side Of Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by the song "The Other Side Of Paradise" by Glass Animals, it's an amazing song and I really recommend giving it a listen!  
> I hope you enjoy :D

George hates apple trees. He hates them. They’re the bane of his existence, representing everything he’s ever loved and lost. Whenever he sees them, he’s faced with an insurmountable amount of deja vu. Their gnarled limbs write a twisted story, their luscious fruits hold only tantalizing destruction, their rotted trunks represent a life poisoned to the core. They taunt him, whispering his failures to everyone, laying them out bare for all to see. But this morning, he’d set aside his intense loathing in order to return to an old haunt. The apple tree that started it all, sitting on top of Peckler’s hill, past the old clubhouse and the neat orchard’s rows. The bench that sits under it is moldy and decaying, its planks tired from years of disuse and harsh weather. But George plops himself down and stares at the sunrise, as he’s done every day on this date for the past three years. 

Anyone who had watched him might think he came up here to mourn. He’s hunched over now, shoulders shaking, the tears that never come pooling in the corners of his eyes. Perhaps he is mourning, but not for the dead. No, he’s mourning for a lost life, a lost future. He’s mourning the loss of another story, another path to take. He mourns his love. It’s been four years, and George had promised himself he’d let go. And if the apple trees and sunrises and the stone cold sweat from waking up in the middle of the night say otherwise, he ignores them. 

Today, exhaustion is in the air. It is in his breath, in his bones, in his veins. It has curled into his mind and settled there like a sleeping dragon, and now it is awake. But it did not petrify the world around him. No, it reserved powers for his soul alone. So he is tired, in the world-weary way of people who know too much and have seen too much, even if it is only in their mind.

But he can sense a presence behind him, and wonders who’s finally plucked up the courage to approach him up here. Approach him at all, maybe, since so few do even that these days. 

And there’s a voice, and George turns, and oh. 

Oh. 

Of course it’s him. Because who else would it be, returning to their small town in the middle of nowhere, standing there as if nothing had changed? Returning on this day, on their day? Returning home as if he wasn’t famous now, as if half the world didn’t know his name, as if he hadn’t left. Hadn’t left their home, hadn’t left their lives. Hadn’t left George. 

“Clay.” He whispers, and his tone conveys everything words cannot. It speaks of heartbreak and solitude and wistfulness. It speaks of a man who fell in love with the sun, and learned that ashes were all that could exist where fire was concerned. All George sees is a pillar of fire, readying a sacrifice to the gods, a phoenix borne anew, and he wants to throw himself into the flames. He is enamored, he is anguished, and already he knows that this will end in disaster. But he steps off the precipice without a second thought.

“Hey, George.” Clay says, his voice cracking. His hair is longer and George doesn’t know where the years have gone. Because that’s him, that’s his Clay, with the scar on his nose that he got from the bike accident when they were ten. That’s him, with his ear piercing they made the summer before tenth grade, using nothing but a needle and an ice cube in Clay’s garage. But oh, his freckles have faded. His face is harder, more angled, the chips and divets and softness that George had memorized fading into a man. A man who has been through so much without him. His eyes are colder. The spark that George had loved, loved from the beginning, that he had lived to see light up in Clay’s eyes, it too had faded. He was stronger, and sharper, and scarier. He was a stranger. He was Clay. 

“Fancy seeing you here.” Clay states hesitantly, as if there was anywhere else George would be. As if he didn’t know that the moment Clay left without him, George never had a chance of escaping this town. He fiddles with his pocket, gaze turned slightly away from George as if he didn’t want to look at him. 

George finds himself filled with a sharp bolt of rage, at the presumption Clay possessed that wouldn’t even allow him to look at George, look and see what he’d done to him, how he’d hurt him when he’d left. George wants nothing more than to walk up to him and shove him and shake him a thousand times over, and scream and shout and yell to the rooftops, don’t you see? Don’t you see what you’ve done to me? Don’t you see where you’ve left me? Someone needed to force Clay to face the consequences of his actions the way George has tried to for four long years. 

But some part of him knows that that would solve nothing, and anyway, they are different people now. For all he knows, Clay couldn’t care less about what George has been through since he left. After all, he had a new life now. He had done the impossible, and rose to the top, the way they always dreamed of when they were kids. He’d sat by poolside paradise and pretty riches and a gold Rolex and never looked back once, never written or texted or called. They’d joked and laughed about being LA celebrities or big shot politicians their entire life because they knew it would never come true. When they’d started their band at the beginning of ninth grade, they’d teased one another about writing something that would take them to the top of the charts. George supposed that was exactly what Clay had done. But there had been no ‘them’. Clay was thrust into the irresistible lust of fame and glory. He became a superstar, the biggest rock and roll icon of the decade. And George became no one. And now here they were, standing across a chasm that four years and broken hearts had made.

He shifted, observing how uncomfortable Clay seemed to have grown from his silence. “Yeah.” He retorted hollowly, forcing himself to remain emotionless, “I really never thought I’d see you back in these parts.” The jab is obvious, and he almost feels guilty when he sees Clay wince, a look of pain flashing over his face as if he too is reminiscing over the promises they’d made that had all been broken. 

Clay runs his hand through his hair, and George notes that he only used to do that when he was nervous. An old habit of his he’d noticed ages ago. “Yeah, well. I didn’t either.” And there is the truth of the matter. Clay didn’t plan to come back. Their story had been closed. The ink had dried, and one piece of the whole had moved on. It wasn’t George. It’s staggering and yet so, so simple because George already knew the answer. He just never expected it to come so soon or in such a straightforward manner. Clay had never been one to play games or dance around words, and George appreciates that about him. But he’d be lying if he said it didn’t send an almost audible shock wave through him, stunning him into silence.

He knows he didn’t mask his hurt well enough when Clay’s expression softens, and George’s fond childhood nickname rolls off his tongue, sweet in practice but bitter in application, the words mangled by lost hope and the broken dreams of youth. “Georgie,” Clay starts, and already he can feel himself shutting down, closing everything off, waiting for this awful, excruciating moment to end. It’s pathetic how many wounds can be reopened by the words Clay wields. Every sentence is inflicted upon him with precision, and he feels like he’s watching his own car crash happen in front of him with nothing he can do to stop it. “I’ve missed you.” 

It was the cruelest thing Clay could have said in that moment, and George feels his fire burn in him once more as he steps closer, not bothering to bite down the sharp words sitting on the edge of his tongue. “You miss me _now?_ ” He hisses, voice full of venom, “You care _now?_ You come back _now?_ What about before, Clay? What about four years, four years of sitting alone and wondering and waiting in heartbreak, four years of watching you chase my dreams while I became your consequence, four years of watching you revel in stardom while I sit in a broken town with nothing left but fractured promises and abandoned memories. You’ve been doing nothing but haunting me, Clay, and you have no right to come back here and act like everything is fine and that I was never hurt and that you never left.” He’s shouting now, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, every word he’s wanted to say the last four years has spewed out of his mouth but there’s still so much more, and somewhere along the way his words transform into sobs and his breath is ragged and he is alone, so alone, and he can feel the exhaustion of his outburst overcome him all at once, and he sags into himself, his raw, half-healed scars revealed for everyone to see. 

Clay steps forward and pulls him into an embrace, and he doesn’t have the will to resist anymore, letting himself fall into it and feel the familiar warmth of Clay’s body against his, all his planes and curves, the way he fits perfectly against George like a final puzzle piece, and it’s so intimate and yet so foreign. 

“I’m sorry, George. I’m so, so sorry.” It’s too much and not enough, and George wonders what Clay has been thinking about all these years, because sometimes all George can think about is him. His heart stutters, and somewhere he can recognize the old Clay; his Clay, whose smiles were more stunning than the stars that twinkle in the sky, whose heart was kind and passionate and etched in the stories of the moon, who’s words weaved worlds together with a single breath. The Clay that memorized every constellation in every season because he loved to point them out when they lay under the stars. The Clay who convinced George that they should become mentors for the kindergarten reading group. The Clay who memorized every song they learned faster than anyone George has known. 

“Listen,” Clay says gently, in the special, soft tone he reserves only for George, “I know. I know. I can’t even begin to understand but there’s so much we both have to say. If you give me the chance, I can perhaps explain some things for the both of us. If you can’t do it, I understand. But I’ll be here for a while. I’m not planning on leaving any time soon.” His face is pleading, puppy dog eyes on full display, and the charming, cocky star that the world knew didn’t exist in that moment. The promise in his words nearly breaks George’s heart, so similar to the things they said as youth, so similar to every broken vow George keeps locked up inside him.

“I’ll think about it.” He sniffles slightly, disentangling himself from their hug. Reaching up, he picks the last apple from the tree. This is a terrible idea, he already knows how this will end, but he is but a man, and no mortal can resist temptation for long. And then Clay smiles, and he is the sun, he is a blooming poppy on a summer’s day, he is the exquisite crescendo of an orchestra, and the muse of the Gods, he is forbidden fruit and the delicate heat of a summer day, and George is enveloped, infatuated, dazzled, and so far gone. Clay has always been intoxicating, and George has always known his greatest weakness. 

~*~

_Four Years Earlier_

They were young and stupid, and they dreamed of fortune. 

Clay had been offered a record deal. One of their albums had blown up and hit the Billboard charts, and the phone had been ringing off the hook ever since. They’d had to hire a proper manager, since Alex’s mom admitted she wasn’t able to keep up with all the press. The problem was, the calls hadn’t been for their whole band. No, most records seemed to think that the only person in their band with any real potential was the tall, blond, gorgeous lead-singer. Clay. 

George had never really expected their music to take off. It had always been a pipe-dream to him, something you whispered about in the early morning just to get you through the day. He knew he was good at guitar, and he was passionate about it, but being the lead-guitarist for a huge band? It was never a possibility. So when their album took off, he was ecstatic. Maybe he could finally make something of his life and escape from this small town along with his best friends. But as things gradually came to light, George realized that nothing would end up as it seemed.  
The last few months of senior year were a blur. There were negotiations and contracts and taxes that George couldn’t even begin to understand. What had become achingly clear, however, was how he and Clay were growing apart. Where they had once spent everyday together, talking beneath the apple tree or messing around with the band, now he was lucky if he saw Clay maybe once a week outside of school. He always seemed to be caught up in some meeting or hanging out with another friend. Looking back, George doesn’t know if it was intentional or not. If Clay was distancing himself from the rest of the band because he knew it would make it easier to say goodbye. 

But on his last day of childhood, when school ended, George didn’t bother showing up to class. It didn’t matter if he was there or not. He knew exactly how his story was written, and he was almost impassive to the arduous future he would surely face. Tedious days of working at the restaurant, waking up and returning home and repeating the cycle without a chance for an outlier. The band had been disbanded after the records refused to pick any of them up besides Clay. None of them wanted to make music without the others, and now that they’d had their publicity and it had gone nowhere, they doubted there was any sunswept future waiting for them. No, they would all stay in this little town and perhaps find some other passion to chase and live off of. This was the way of the universe; from dust they had come and to dust they would return. 

Today was a day to sing the praises of youth, and whisper the prayers of what George had lost now that he had begun adulthood. His past had been bright, but his future was not. And so he found himself once again at the old apple tree. The place that had been the center of his world since his life had begun. This was where friendships rose and fell, where dreams had been made and games had been played, where he had fallen in love. He could still hear the echoes of nursery rhymes they’d sung. The ghostly laughter that spoke so strongly of freedom twisting around the branches on moonlit summer nights. 

He remembered a sleepover they’d had under the stars, the week before high school started. It had been just him and Clay, then, and the moon had been so bright and swollen in the sky that George almost believed he could reach out and touch it. It had been almost normal, if not for a simple conversation near the witching hour.

It had been so late into the night that George knew Clay must have been asleep, until he turned over in his sleeping bag and saw Clay looking at George earnestly.

“Did you know,” Clay had whispered, tone hushed as to not disturb the creatures of the night, “That every star we see in the sky is only a reflection of light from the past? We have no idea what their futures might be. They could be even brighter and more encapsulating, or they could be burnt out, dead with no one to mourn them.” He looked back up at the stars wistfully, leaning even closer to George. The moment was so intimate that George could only nod, trying to imagine a world in which people could only see the past rather than the future. It was in that moment, as he looked into Clay’s wide eyes, that he first felt a hesitant, fluttery feeling in his stomach. Clay had turned back over and fallen asleep so quietly that George almost believed he’d imagined the moment when he awoke the next morning. 

But although that was the first time he’d wanted nothing more than to hear every word, every thought, every symphony Clay had in his brain, it wasn’t the last. 

And so here he sat, under the apple tree, in love with his best friend. 

He pulled out the notebook he’d been scribbling in the past few months. He’d never considered himself a writer, just a thinker, and his attempts to put words on a page usually ended in failure. But this time he was deliberate, and the moment he put pen to paper the words began to emerge

_I’m losing you. And you’re losing yourself. This doesn’t feel like fixing a friendship, it feels like prolonging an ending. We’re supposed to be moving forward from the past but all I see is our reflections. We’re hiding from ourselves. The last flourish on the page has already been written, but we have yet to close the book. I want to write a new story. Do you?_

There was a reason George had always been the lyricist of the band. All his life, George had been writing history in his mind. He did it from a young age, never unintentionally, simply as a habit. So many things piqued his interest that he couldn’t help but contemplate them, discover them. That was something he and Clay both shared; a thirst for knowledge. 

But the problem with existentialism is that sometimes life seems to languish in a dream.

His writing grew more frantic as his thoughts began to race faster than his brain could keep up with, his stomach sinking as an image of Clay floated in front of his eyes, laughing in the hallway with someone who wasn’t George, not even acknowledging his presence. 

_You’re so absent, even when I see you. Like a tranquil lake, I can no longer peer beneath the surface and read you as I once could._

_You’re cutting ties. You think I’m foolish enough that I haven’t noticed? The only question I don’t know the answer to is why._

_We used to want to fly, but what does it mean to soar? To coast above the wind, past the heavens, to choose to reach higher rather than let ourselves be carried. To touch the stardust and know the secrets that only the future holds. To see the memories the universe keeps under lock and key._

The ink is smudged now, his letters coming faster than the pace the glistening blue fluid can dry at. The sentences are shaky, rushed, running together like a child speaking their first words. They are haphazard and dangerous and wild. They are the work of a man who sees too much and feels too deeply. 

_Where are you going, that I cannot follow? Where will you be, without a shadow?_

_These days, the stars are my lone confidant._

_Our past has been unending, but will our future burn?_

He paused, breath uneven, eyes catching on to the sun that was just barely beginning to set. Colors tinged the sky, bleeding like ink into oranges and reds and pinks. It was a massacre. Exhaling, he began again, words flowing through his fingers like a wired conductor channeling an undying spark.

_I’ve written too many symphonies to count, in my head and out loud, and they were all about you._

_And you were my constant even when my planets were gone. Even when I was spinning out of orbit, you and I, we held on. And now I’m drowning without the stars, and everything is wrong.  
Even though you’re right there, I feel like you’re so lost. _

_Our music haunts me now, all I hear is its melody._

_I loved you and I love you and I lost you and I had you, and I’m scared that my sentences won’t end with you. I know what it’s like to love, now._

_To love someone so deeply you would fade to ashes for them. Nothing but a ghost of memories past._

_Has it all gone to your head? Have you forgotten what we said? We were an orchestra, but now you play only for yourself._

_Maybe,_ he wrote, fingers shaking as he grasps the pen, _I don’t want to mean anything without you._

A sudden noise behind him startled him out of his stupor, and he spun around. 

“George?” Clay sounded surprised as he clambered over the last lip of the hill. 

“ _Clay_?” George responded incredulously. He smiled slightly, and gestured for Clay to come sit next to him. It had been ages since they’d both been up here together. He quickly scrambled to hide the forgotten notebook next to him, face tinting pink.

“You don’t have to look so flustered,” Clay teased with an earnest grin “It’s just me, your bestie.” 

George schooled his expression to one of disinterest, but the remark hit close to home. Were they even best friends anymore? He didn’t know. “Yeah, well, it’s been a while.”

“Things have been kind of crazy recently. It’s been a lot to handle.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves of the apple tree was the only noise present. 

"I didn't expect you to be here." Clay admitted quietly. 

“Where else would I be?" George asked with a light laugh. What he really wanted to ask is, _where have you been?_

Clay shrugged, letting out a sigh as he glanced at the sunset. “I’ve missed you” He said hesitantly, broaching the topic that both had been musing over. 

“Well, that’s not exactly my fault, is it?” George snapped, an acidic taste filling his throat as his stomach twisted. He looked away, shoulders hunching slightly. 

“No,” Clay stated carefully, his expression becoming guarded “It isn’t. But there’s more than just that, so many things that you don’t know, Georgie.” The pet-name slipped out as his tone shifted, becoming more gentle as he placed his hand on George’s chin and tilted his face up toward him. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve left you alone these past few months. I imagine it kind of sucked. I know it did for me.”

He let himself gaze into Clay’s sparkling eyes, searching for traces of the boy he once knew. “You’re right, it did suck.” He scoffed. Clay was wholly to blame, having ignored any attempts to follow their normal routine, and George wondered why he hadn’t said anything if he’d missed their friendship as well. While George did have Alex, Karl, and Nick to keep him company, their trio wasn’t nearly the same as Clay’s comforting presence. But something about Clay’s expression was familiar and genuine, and he softened a bit. “I missed you too, you idiot. So much.” 

Clay pulled him into a hug, all the words they’d left unsaid silently exchanged. George let himself fade into that warm, intimate embrace, and in that moment, they were infinite. Until something Clay said struck him.

“What don’t I know?” He challenged, “Enlighten me.” An apple thumped to the ground next to him, having fallen from the tree above. He ignored it.

“I’m leaving.” Clay whispered, 

and the world stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Comments and kudos are very appreciated, as is constructive criticism. I'm always looking to improve my writing!  
> Thank you for reading. :)  
> I'll try to stick to an upload schedule of around once a week.  
> Check me out on twitter at https://mobile.twitter.com/Ink_Quills_ <3


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